Review: Dear God No! / Cert: 18 / Director: James Bickert / Screenplay: James Bickert / Starring: Jett Bryant, Madeline Brumby, Paul McComisky, Olivia LaCroix / Release Date: January 14th 

Aspiring filmmakers with no appreciable skill or talent whatsoever have been able to handily hide their lack of ability behind the grindhouse tag over the last few years, churning out grubby, cheap little movies, adding a few crackly on-screen visual affectations for extra sleaze value and then, presumably, sitting back and waiting for critics and audiences to tell them how smart and knowing they’ve been. Not this time, buster. Dear God No! is a grindhouse-cum-biker pic, but whatever it is, there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s a truly vile, repellent, nasty-looking piece of work which only succeeds in making the viewer wish that cinema had never been invented.

James Bickert’s foul script, appallingly directed, concerns a gang of devil-worshipping bikers (all in their fifties, by the looks of them) who like nothing more than murdering nuns and raping people. After a shootout in a topless bar, they stumble across a remote cabin where a former Nazi scientist is experimenting on bringing the dead – and specifically his late wife – back to life. The scientist, for reasons which we can scarcely be bothered to remember, is dining with an expectant young couple when the bikers arrive and start killing and raping everyone. Then Sasquatch turns up and tears people’s heads off. Then there’s a bit more raping.

We’re made of stern stuff here at Starburst (we got through Battleship, after all) but Dear God No! just goes too far. This is essentially pornography of the lowest order; the violence would be brutally offensive if it weren’t so ineptly realised (but one sequence involving a pregnant woman is stomach-churningly grotesque and makes you fear for minds that are capable of creating such disturbing garbage) and the dire acting is no more than such effluence deserves. Bickert’s witless, clueless direction and the desperately low production values (it’s all shot on 16mm for that authentic 1970s grindhouse feel) are the rancid icing on a poisonous cake which should never have been baked.

If a mate of yours is a grindhouse connoisseur, and he or she invites you to see this raunchy new movie they’ve got their hands on, take our advice and (obvious review conclusion alert) tell ‘em, “Dear God, no!” This is right up there with the very worst things ever made in any medium.

Extras: Two cuts of the film, the theatrical cut and the all new exclusive Grindhouse cut / Full colour booklet / Audio commentaries / Gag reel / Slideshows / Promos

Review: Wrong Turn 5 / Cert: 18 / Director: Declan O’Brien / Screenplay: Declan O’Brien / Starring: Doug Bradley, Camilla Arfwedson, Simon Ginty / Release Date: January 28th

There’s a point, in the latest Wrong Turn film, where one character turns to another and says, “Another wrong turn, huh?” Yes, another, and the procession of stupid victims with crap navigational skills shows no sign of abating anytime soon. Just buy a sat nav already.

Bloodlines is a sequel to last year’s prequel, Bloody Beginnings. On the run from their trashed mental hospital home, the three cannibalistic, inbred brothers stalk the woodlands near a small West Virginian town, assisted by carer Maynard (Bradley, but apparently the same character as portrayed toothlessly by Wayne Robson in the first two movies). When Maynard is run over and arrested by a well-meaning local Sheriff (Arfwedson), the boys will stop at nothing to get him back. What ensues is like Assault on Precinct 13 crossed with a more conventional Wrong Turn movie.

Those looking for artistic merit in Wrong Turn 5 will find little to enjoy. It’s cynical, lazy and cheap. Stupid, cruel and nasty. It’s badly written, badly acted and only passably directed. It is, however, one of this Wrong Turn fan’s favourite entries – the very definition of a guilty pleasure. The film takes place around the town’s annual Mountain Man Festival, a fancy dress celebration of inbred hillbillies everywhere. A passing contingent of stupid teenagers find themselves caught up in the muties’ raid upon the police station when one of their number is also arrested along with Maynard. With the mutants free to come and go as they please (it’s a town with about two cops to its name), it looks to be the last wrong turn these kids will ever make.

As locals, teenagers and cops are quickly and very violently knocked off one by one, Doug Bradley (Pinhead!) sits in his cell, sneering maliciously at everyone – including his own hillbilly family. His Maynard is incredibly underused, but he brings some much needed class to the project (if only by Hellraiser osmosis, since this is not a great performance). Meanwhile, the kill sequences are reliably gory and inventive. There’s nothing to match Bloody Beginnings‘ fondue scene, but a bit with a thresher and a football field is a highlight. There’s also a truly disgusting intestinal dinner scene and a gag made from duct tape and a shotgun. What it lacks in intelligence and plot, it makes up for in gleeful offensiveness and Doug Bradley looking like a grubby John Locke from Lost.

Ultimately, Bloodlines delivers everything you’d expect from a straight-to-DVD Wrong Turn sequel. It’s crass, exploitative, extremely violent and very stupid. Fans should love it, then.

Extras: Audio commentary by Declan O’Brien / Director’s die-aries / ‘A Day in the Death’ clip / ‘Hillbilly Kills’ clip

Review: Vampire Ecstasy / Cert: 18 / Director: Joseph W. Sarno / Screenplay: Joseph W. Sarno / Starring: Nadia Henkowa, Anke Syring, Marie Forså, Nico Wolferstetter / Release Date: January 21st

While not the most famous of names in the sexploitation genre, Joe Sarno was nevertheless one of its leading players. With Vampire Ecstasy (aka Veil of Blood or The Devil’s Plaything) he crossed over into the horror scene, albeit in a very small way.

In a familiar horror trope, a group of young girls have been invited to an old castle, whose housekeeper Wanda (Henkova) and her maidens happen to be vampires/witches/weirdo sex maniacs (delete as you will). Wanda decides that the pretty young Helga (Forså, later to be a major star in Scandinavian exploitation films such as Flossie) would be the ideal vessel in which to resurrect her vampire mistress, Baroness Varga. However, two other visitors, Julia and Peter, (Syring and Wolferstetter), try put a stop to their plan.

Sporting crucifixes made from garlic cloves around their necks, the group attempt to fend off the lustful locals, who retaliate by dancing naked around a burning cauldron, brandishing phallic candles to a hypnotic drumbeat, thus causing the girls to lose all inhibitions and have continual masturbation sessions. Helga comes off worse, as her itch just can’t be scratched. “Make the throbbing stop!” she begs the cruel Wanda.

Unusually for a German movie, the cast were required to mouth English dialogue, which is all good and fine, except as it’s not their native language, the acting is stilted to say the least. Also, after over 90 minutes of almost none stop boobs (nice as they are) you do wish for something a little more, and the climax is a bit of a damp squib. While Henkova makes a very imposing villain, there’s no real sense of danger. The castle location is wonderful, however, and the cinematography is a cut above the usual standard for this type of sleaze and creates a surreal atmosphere in which anything could happen (but sadly doesn’t).

This release, the first time in the UK, is uncut and looks great, and those rhythmic drums will be beating in your head long after the credits roll. It’s more for fans of Jean Rollin than Hammer, so if softcore vintage eroticism is your bag, it’s worth a look.

Extras: ‘A Touch of Horror’ – a 6 minute interview with the late director, Joseph Sarno, which is interesting but not in depth.

Review: The Bloody Judge / Cert: 18 / Director: Jesus Franco / Screenplay: Enrico Colombo, Jesus Franco, Michael Haller, Harry Alan Towers, Anthony Scott Veitch / Starring: Christopher Lee, Maria Schell, Leo Glenn, Howard Vernon, Maria Rohm / Release Date: January 21st 2013

Prolific filmmaker Jesus (Jess) Franco could be the movie equivalent of Marmite, but with a back catalogue that runs to almost 200 films, there’s bound to be at least a couple of his flicks that a mainstream audience could enjoy. This 1970 offering may well be one of them.

It’s the late 17th century, and ‘Hanging Judge’ George Jeffries (Lee) is busy doling out the death penalty to anyone and everyone opposed to the reigning monarch, King James II. If no evidence of treason is forthcoming, accusations of witchcraft make a handy standby. When one particular girl is burnt at the stake (having refused Jeffries’ offer of leniency in exchange for sexual favours), her sister (Rohm) plots against the Judge with the aid of her well-connected lover (Harry Hass, Jr.).

Obviously riding on the coattails of Witchfinder General, this film comes from the period of Spanish director Franco’s collaboration with British producer Harry Alan Towers. It was the pair’s third film with Christopher Lee, and the horror legend is on brilliant form here as the real life judge, bringing a gravitas which is missing from most of Franco’s oeuvre. The director’s on good form too, demonstrating his wonderful eye for setting up a scene and refraining from the numerous fast zooms which tend to annoy his detractors. There is a copious amount of female nudity and sadistic violence in this, the most complete available print of the film, which runs some ten minutes longer than previous UK releases. There are a number of short sequences which are in German as they were not in the other English speaking versions, but there is none of that loss in quality that you usually get with cut and paste jobs (the aforementioned Witchfinder General being a case in point). While it’s not as graphic as today’s films, it does go a little further than the Hammer style it emulates. Some of the dubbing on the Spanish actors is unintentionally funny, often from the Dick Van Dyke school of accents. Franco regular Howard Vernon pops up as the executioner, in what should have been a nod to Boris Karloff’s role in Tower of London, but he ends up looking more like Marty Feldman. As a historical drama (if not as historically accurate as Lee would have liked) it holds up well, and has a fantastic, if sparingly used, Bruno Nicolai score. The widescreen print used for this release looks great, too.

Extras: An interesting 25 minute interview with both Franco and Lee, talking separately. It’s well edited, and they both have a lot to say. There are some alternate scenes from different versions of the film, and one deleted scene, a stills gallery and the obligatory trailer (under its awful US title, Night of the Blood Monster).

Review: Hollow / Cert: 15 / Director: Michael Axelgaard / Screenplay: Matthew Holt / Starring: Emily Plumtree, Sam Stockman, Matt Stockoe / Release Date: January 28th

Hollow is a thoroughly British horror film. A small band of young people go out into the wilds of Suffolk to have a good time in an old, abandoned monastery. They quickly learn that the local tree is a notorious spot for suicides and has an unpleasant, ghost-related history. And you can bet it rains too.

This is Michael Axelgaard’s first time out as a director, and he uses the found footage format, which has been a mixed blessing for many a debut horror movie maker. On the one hand, it allows for a more basic approach to filming, but it can also hamper the flow of the story and its documentary nature severely limits the plot. Hollow gets past these limitations through some fairly clever scripting and by focusing heavily on interpersonal relationships. Trouble is, this throws up another issue. In short; it’s not that interesting.

The acting is good, especially for a small indie horror, but the characterisation is problematic. The protagonists are very realistic and believable, but also a little dull. What works in a real world conversation can be less than gripping when committed to film, and though Hollow doesn’t quite get utterly boring, it doesn’t go out of its way to excite you either. As a result, though the story spends a lot of time allowing the viewer to become familiar with the cast, they all remain slightly unlikeable. Not enough for you to wish them a sticky end, but almost.

Fans of British ghost stories and found footage movies will find this a nice way to pass the time. However, if you’re a gorehound looking for plenty of chills, you will be disappointed. Hollow is a haunting, slow-burn movie that is slightly above average. As low-budget, first time features go, it’s okay, but we do hope that the next movie they produce is more engaging.

Extras: None

Review: House of 1000 Dolls / Cert: 15 / Director: Jeremy Summers / Screenplay: Harry Alan Towers / Starring: Vincent Price, Martha Nyer, George Nader, Ann Smyrner / Release Date: January 28th

Yet another slice of Euro-sleaze from the stable of Brit producer Harry Alan Towers. And it’s got Vincent Price in it. But is it as doll-icious as it sounds? We think not.

This is a tale of sex trafficking, in which stage illusionist Felix Manderville (Price) and his assistant Rebecca (Hyer) aid a mysterious kingpin, known only as the King of Hearts, to procure new girls for his brothels in down-town Tangiers. George Armstrong (Nader, ‘famous’ for his lead in grade Z turkey Robot Monster) and his wife, Marie (Smyrner), become involved when they find out one of their pals has been murdered while attempting to track down his missing girlfriend (played by Tower’s wife Maria Rohm, who, surprise, surprise, managed to feature in many of his films). Without knowing what they are getting into, the couple head into the seedy underworld to find out what has happened, with the Great Manderville all too willing to help.

The film was directed by a veteran of various action-oriented TV shows, but you certainly couldn’t tell – the pacing is patchy, with long periods of very little happening. Although Tower’s script (written under his pen name of Peter Welbeck) has to shoulder at least part of the blame, stuffed as it is with grand ideas that don’t come to fruition, and plot strands that go nowhere until the frantic climax. Which is not to say all is lost. The cinematography (by Manual Merino, who was behind the lens on some of Jess Franco’s best, such as Vampyros Lesbos and Count Dracula) is wonderful, and kudos must go to Mediumrare for releasing the film in it’s original widescreen format, rather than the full frame version that is screened on TV, so we can make the most of it. Fans of Price will enjoy his performance, which invokes his turn in The Mad Magician, but there are all too few macabre touches (the delivery of one of the ‘dolls’ in a coffin and hearse is a stand out) and even he apparently rated the movie as one of his worst. It just never gets seedy enough to have that sleaze factor we look for in this type of film, but it could pass a few hours on a wet Sunday afternoon.

Extras: None

Review: Creepozoids (Grindhouse 4) / Cert: 18 / Director: David DeCoteau / Screenplay: Buford Hauser, David DeCoteau / Starring: Linnea Quigley, Ken Abraham, Michael Aranda / Release Date: January 14th 2013

Take the claustrophobic menace of Alien. Add the shape-shifting terror of The Thing. Then subtract cash and technical know-how and shoot the whole shebang for $75,000 in a basement. And hey presto, you have Creepozoids (1987). Oi, stop sniggering, this is serious.

It’s a post-nuclear 1998. (Sorry, when? Oh, right, ’80s film.) Society is in ruins. Deadly poison rain pours from the sky. Fleeing the next band of bad weather, a small gang of army deserters seeks refuge in an abandoned underground laboratory. With its shelves of provisions and hot running water, it’s a sweet hideout. But no piece of real estate is absolutely perfect, and this one’s infested with giant rats and home to a fish-face lizard-man who likes to lurch at people, spitting black goo. Damn you, mad scientists and your crazy amino acids experiments!

With poison rain chucking it down outside, the gang have no choice but to stand their ground, in a repeatedly-running-up-and-down-the-same-corridor-screaming sort of way. They’re plagued by the giant rodents, two of them die spewing black goo, one of them turns into a zombie (which dies spewing black goo too… lots of black goo in this movie, lots of spewing). It’s a busy outing for horror queen Linnea Quigley, who, in her role as a tousle-haired rookie, totes a gun, takes a shower, gets a giant rat up her T-shirt and runs up and down that corridor with everyone else. There’s a protracted grab and throw showdown between the monster and the dwindling survivors – protracted because the monster moves with all the nimbleness of a pantomime horse – before a save-the-best-till-last gross-out finale which involves a killer baby and an umbilical cord being used as a deadly weapon.

Apart from the wait… what?… rewind that! ending, the scares and plot beats are genre standard only, but it’s all reasonably atmospheric thanks to the ’80s murk-o-vision cinematography, and director/co-writer David DeCoteau hustles things along in a satisfyingly brisk, unfussy manner. There’s some green discolouration to the picture in several of the darker scenes, but generally this is a reasonably sharp DVD transfer of a movie which wears its straight-to-VHS heritage on its sleeve. Newbies to 88 Films’ Grindhouse Collection should probably start elsewhere, but aficionados of video store schlock who know what they’re letting themselves in for will likely find plenty here to tickle their fancy. Fleshing out the disc is a lengthy bonus doc called Film Gore, which is basically just a compilation of spatter mayhem from vintage drive-in movies … wait, did we say just? More ketchup!

Extras: Film Gore (1983) Bonus Film / Full Moon Trailer Park / Stills Gallery / Original Trailer / Reversible sleeve incorporating original artwork

Review: Dr. Alien (Grindhoue 5) / Cert: 18 / Director: David DeCoteau / Screenplay: Kenneth J. Hall / Starring: Billy Jacoby, Judy Landers, Olivia Barash, Raymond O’Connor / Release Date: January 14th 2013

Ever wondered what it would be like if you were to graft a Jerry Lewis slapstick comedy onto a Frank Henenlotter creature feature? No, honestly, we hadn’t either, but that’s more or less what they’ve done in Dr. Alien (1989). Recruited to assist in an after-hours project by his new biology professor Ms. Zenobia (Landers, hiding a Mekon dome under the big hair), freshman Wesley (Jacoby) is injected with ‘alien vitamins’ which turn the terminally uncool nerd into an instant babe magnet. However, there’s an alarming side-effect in the shape of a ‘hideous flesh antenna’ which pops out of the top of his head at inopportune moments. Whoa, too sexy for this galaxy!

The film’s at its weakest early on, when it’s at its most Jerry Lewis-ish. Styling, stereotypes and reference points are all drawn from the ’50s in a way that seems bizarrely anachronistic for the late ’80s. (If in doubt, couldn’t they have nicked a few ideas from Ferris Buellers’s Day Off or something?) Then there’s the horribly dated hey-folks-this-is-a-comedy soundtrack, which accompanies every bumble and pratfall with a cacophony of boings, wah-wahs and horn-honkings. It also doesn’t help that the burly Jacoby makes for a rather lumpen leading man – he looks like he ate Matthew Broderick.

However, once the SF weirdness kicks in, the ’50s trappings are dialled down and the movie finds its own quirky identity. The fleshy antenna (which sends out stimulating vibrations to all the females in the vicinity) never fails to raise a smile, and if anything it improves Wesley’s appearance. Ms. Xenobia and her lab assistant Drax (O’Connor) serve as a pleasantly campy chorus to the main action and provide most of the comic highlights (including an especially good scene where he puts an ill-advised move on her at at local necking spot). On the downside, there’s a rather sappy teen romance arc (“I don’t want all the women. Leeanne is the only girl for me,” Wesley whines after pulling himself out from under another heap of females), but things culminate nicely with a aliens rampaging through the local New Wave nightclub. The picture is somewhat muted and grainy on this DVD, but in a way that adds to the grindhouse cred.

Despite its racy theme, Dr. Alien is quite restrained in terms of what it shows. The same can’t be said of the bonus film, an hour-long sexploitation doc from the ’70s about a bunch of Burt Reynolds and Farrah Fawcett lookalikes auditioning for roles in a blue movie. “Oh, this is a real set?” exclaims one wide-eyed hopeful. Then she tests how solid it is by dropping her knickers on it.

Extras: Auditions (1978) Bonus Film / Full Moon Trailer Park / Stills Gallery / Original Trailer / Reversible sleeve incorporating original artwork

Review: Grabbers / Cert: 15 / Director: Jon Wright / Screenplay: Kevin Lehane / Starring: Richard Coyle, Russell Tovey, Ruth Bradley / Release Date: Out Now

This movie has been touted in some quarters as the Irish Tremors – which is bit of a disservice to Tremors really, because Grabbers is too silly and lightweight to warrant comparison to Ron Underwood’s minor creature feature classic. True, it’s fun and amusing for much of its running time, but it’s not exactly going to rock your world.

A meteor lands (get ready to clutch your sides)… somewhere off the coast of Ireland, and the largely drunken inhabitants of a sleepy fishing village start hauling in mysterious eggs in their nets. It’s not long before the eggs hatch small squid-like bloodsucking creatures. The confused population realises that the critters seem to be allergic to alcohol, so guess what they do? That’s right, they get slaughtered – but in a good way.

To begin with, the laughs flow thick and fast with barely a moment going by without some chucklesome line of dialogue or piece of slapstick. However, the comedy runs dry halfway through. The villagers’ antics begin to seem forced, and the brief but nicely done gore of the first half disappears entirely. Richard Coyle, Russell Tovey and Ruth Bradley do a good job in the three lead roles, and Coyle and Bradley get something approaching a character arc and make a cute couple. The rest of the cast is made up of reliable Irish thesps and they all make the best of fairly weak material.

Where the film does score is in its digital SFX, which are as slick and seamless as any you are likely to see in a British movie. In particular, the creature animation is superb, from the miniature squids through to the multi-tentacled big bad which lurks in a cave on the beach. If the filmmakers had managed to strike a better balance between gore and giggles, then Grabbers could have been a contender. As it is it’s an intriguing curiosity which is best enjoyed over a jar or three.

Extras: Audio commentary / Behind-the-scenes featurette / Interview with the director / Outtakes and photo gallery

Review: Manborg / Cert: 15 / Director: Steven Kostanski  / Screenplay: Jeremy Gillespie, Steven Kostanski / Starring: Matthew Kennedy, Adam Brooks, Meredith Sweeney, Conor Sweeney, Ludwig Lee / Release Date: January 7th

Missed the Eighties the first time round? Never mind, because they’re back, in the shape of Manborg, a loving evocation of the cult Troma and Full Moon movies of that hallowed period. Led by Count Draculon (Brooks), hordes of demon Nazis have risen from Hell. A soldier (Kennedy) perishes in the conflict, only to be fashioned into the ultimate cyborg warrior by unknown hands. Awakening sometime in the future to find the Hellions in charge and mankind crushed into submission, he’s captured and forced to fight in a deadly arena, along with a handful of other hardy human survivors. Poor guy, how Tromatic (see what we did there?).

The plot is back of a matchbox stuff, but director Steve Kostanski throws everything he’s got at it, which you might not think would be very much considering that the budget was allegedly a laughable $1000 (which can’t really be true, surely, you couldn’t lay a patio for that). That, though, is to reckon without the movie’s elevation of a cheapo, straight-to-VHS look into an aesthetic. The result is undeniably eye-catching, and you certainly won’t have seen anything quite like it.

We’re not just talking about a grainy finish, murky definition and blurry, over-saturated colours – although these are all present and correct. There are also other touchstones of the era, such as OTT prosthetics and stop-motion animation, all cobbled together against green screen backdrops with the aid of (presumably very inexpensive) CGI – and all cheerfully foregrounded in a surreal, comic book style which borrows from old arcade games as well as from ’80s sf flicks.

On the whole, it’s an approach which works miraculously well. Manborg himself is a bit craft projecty, but the Hellions are quite a sight, with their bald pates and stitched up mouths, and there are some surprisingly visceral set pieces, including a nice hoverbike chase. Among the genre-based laughs is a good joke regarding Manborg’s squeaky servos, and an on-running gag about Asian martial arts expert #1 Man (Lee), who speaks in an overdubbed baritone as though inhabiting his own chopsocky movie.

Admittedly, it’s not all comedy gold, and there are more than a couple of cringe-worthy moments in Manborg‘s one hour running time, but this is still a very lovable piece of homespun movie-making. You also get a wonderful bonus – Biocop, an hilarious mock-trailer about a grotesque, indestructible fountain of goo who is obliged to patrol the mean streets while really wanting nothing more than an end to his misery. “Have you got a death wish or something?” wonders his partner after Biocop tries sucking on a gun barrel. “Yes!!!” Biocop slobbers. Gut-bustingly funny.

Extras: None